Is there a correlation between rising secularism and improved quality of life?

Some propose that secularism will continue to rise as people achieve a higher level of security and happiness. In countries such as Japan and Sweden secularism enjoys a high level of existence. The quality of life in these developed countries is among the highest of the industrialized world. So if people feel secure in their daily lives are they less apt to harbor religious convictions? In countries where economic development remains healthy and constant should it be surprising that secularism also experiences growth? Could it be said that religion oftentimes is a crutch for the poor and ignorant of the underdeveloped world?

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While a 'food bank' can help with the problem of 'food', being dependent upon this as the 'only' solution might be dysfunctional. Learning how to grow food, trade for it, raise animals when possible, etc, can put us back into our roots as creators.

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day... but give him a fishing rod and he'll break it and use it for firewood.

During my years in Catholicism, which included twelve years in Catholic schools, I heard many times that life on earth is nothing and life in Heaven is everything.

The fly in your ointment is that I bet that those who actually believe that in practice are few and far between. And I grew up surrounded by Catholics. In fact, most of my neighborhood friends were Catholics. I don't believe any of actually believed that.

I would say that education level is coincident with secularism, and that the quality of life is usually higher when a majority of the people are well educated. There could be a decent study in that hypothesis. I would start by examining the education levels of certain countries, ranging from highest quality of life, to lowest. Then by conducting a survey in these countries, thereby ascertaining the levels of religiosity in these areas to see how it corresponds.

The well educated societies of Sweden and Japan, being predominantly secular, seem to indicate that education and secularism walk hand in hand, with religion falling behind. It is interesting that catholicism and protestantism are supposedly on the rise in Brazil and certain other South American countries. Brazil is economically much healthier of late and this tends to make one wonder if the premise holds true in all cases.

How many large corporations are setting up shop in these South American countries? Considering what happened to Argentina with the rise of crony capitalism, I think that a sudden rise in economic wealth doesn't necessarily correlate the rise of catholicism and protestantism. Sweden, Switzerland, and Japan are long established wealth centers, and also have a long history of secularism. It's best not to count the chickens in the incubator.

In my experience, theism offers a fertile ground for atheist production. If the 'known' atheists left, I expect that the 'quiet ones' would fill the void very quickly, and the 'new ones' would be create a deep revolutionary movement.

Intuitively it makes sense...but you'd have to do a lot of investigation and sound statistical analysis to work it out. I would imagine you would need a pretty large team working round the clock for a pretty long time to say this with confidence assuming intellectual integrity and all. So who's going to give it a go?